Filed under:
- Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.
Main Street effectively cuts the city into two social geographic halves: the North and South sides. They can be distinguished by significant differences of socio-economic status. Census data from the North Side indicates that the population is considerably lower in annual income, education, and housing value, while higher in rental housing and ethnic diversity, especially persons of color.
On the corner of Pershing is El Bracero, the first Mexican social node in the late 1990s for the Mexican community when they would come to the City of Poughkeepsie to look for work. The restaurant itself and the owner became the link in this chain of migration that has been so important in developing the Mexican community in the city. More than 5,000 men, women, and children from Mexico have immigrated to Poughkeepsie between 1995 and 2000. The majority of the immigrants have come from the state of Oaxaca in Mexico.
The Salvation Army thrift shop on Main Street suggests that this is an area where the apartments, a lot of which are single room occupancy, are for single men and for those who, in terms of social class, are in need of thrift shops.
Across the street on Pershing from El Bracero is a small storefront church with primarily African-American parishioners. A West Indian Jamaican restaurant is located a bit further north on Pershing.
Continuing northwards and crossing the westbound arterial on Pershing, just to the east of the arterial, is the former “City Home” or Infirmary. From 1854 to 1900, it was known as the “Alms House”.
It is also here in this part of Poughkeepsie, we see not only the old infirmary, but also a number of small working men’s cottages. They were built in the19th century for the working men who worked in the mills along the ponds of the Fall Kill, where most of the industries were located in the 18th and 19th century because of the use of water power.
